Mid Afternoon
by mattmetzger
Summary: Sequel to 'What Are The Odds.' Jim's life is empty and hollow, Spock is seemingly rejecting his own life, and McCoy just can't be a doctor at a distance.
1. Chapter 1

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**Notes: Okay, so, I broke three fingers and cracked a rib recently. My typing is ridiculously slow. Despite this, my week was okay (ish) - and then you guys showed up. Like, seriously. I have had such wonderful, thoughtful, sweet messages this week and I want to thank everyone involved in my life, online and real, for the last seven days.**

Firstly, you and I should all thank David for doing all my typing for me. I've barely been able to take over; he's still handling reviews and email.

Secondly, VeeDub, for lovely uplifting chat the other night, even if I did fall asleep halfway through. Which I apologise for, exposing your poor soul to David like that!

Thirdly, to Juni, who sent me a very thoughtful email about said angst. While 'thanks' seems a little inappropriate considering the torture I've put you through there, I would like to thank you for reading it regardless, and feeling horribly proud of myself that I can wring emotion from people like that, terrible as a person as that might make me.

And finally, to ShamelessSpocker, for that simply incredible message at four in the morning. Shameless ego-stroking? Absolutely. Appreciated? Even more so. That made my sucky day of hospital and lectures so much better, I can't even explain it. And I'll be honest, you make my day just when you review, never mind going the extra mile!

So thanks to everyone there, and everyone else who's waited so patiently for this. And now...here we go!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek 2009, and I make no profit from this work.**

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"What is this, Commander?"

The stern quality to Jim's voice would have earned him an eyebrow from Spock, or an eyeroll from McCoy, but Commander Patrick Leehy gave no such response. To him, that was how Jim always sounded. It was normal.

But Leehy had been a First Officer on three different ships in the last ten years, and _this _ship...he couldn't take it.

"It's my transfer request, Captain. There's an opening on the _USS Londonderry _that I've a mind to apply for."

"Why?" Jim asked flatly. The _Londonderry _was a battleship - small, lethal and boring. Battleships were all joy during an actual war, but patrolling the Federation borders back and forth, back and forth for five years was nobody's idea of a good time. At least, nobody with the brass balls to sign up to Starfleet.

"Nearer to the missus, Captain."

Jim didn't think so. Everybody knew that Patrick and Lucy Leehy didn't actually like one another. Hell, Patrick and Lucy Leehy made the McCoys look like bosom buddies - and the McCoys had had an ugly divorce. If Patrick Leehy genuinely wanted to be physically closer to his wife, Jim was either going to have him sectioned, or arrested for intent to murder her.

(In the name of duty only. Anyone who'd ever met Lucy Leehy usually ended up wanting to kill her, Jim included.)

"And the real reason?"

Commander Leehy shifted slightly. It was an uncomfortable sight - he was six foot nine and built like a brick shithouse. He was the kind of man who looked to be crushed into his uniform, and bulged out of it at every opportunity. Jim had honest-to-God seen him rip a shirt by stretching. On the plus side, any aliens thinking about threatening their crew thought again after taking one look at Commander Leehy.

"I don't like it here," Leehy said honestly.

Jim closed his eyes. He'd guessed.

It wasn't Leehy's fault. He was a decent man, and at any other time would have been a fantastic asset to the command crew. He'd risen through the ranks from security, but knew enough about engineering and tactical navigation to assist. He wasn't the most diplomatic of men, but the kind of honest, salt-of-the-earth bloke that crewmembers would have sworn undying loyalty to.

At the right time, anyway.

But, frankly, the command crew missed Spock. This man was as far from Spock as one could get, and while there had never been one instance of unprofessionalism, they hadn't exactly been friendly. Too raw, still hurting, too...

"I'm walking in dead man's shoes, sir," Leehy continued.

Yeah. That.

"I know Commander Spock didn't die, sir, but that's what it feels like. Like I've jumped right into his grave and everyone's looking at me and wishing I were him. The junior crew - apart from the sciences - are just fine, but the bridge atmosphere...I can't do it, sir. I can't. And I know it's nobody's fault, but...there it is."

Jim nodded. There it was. They both knew it was true, and they both knew that the rapid transfer wouldn't look bad on Leehy's record. He'd come in as a replacement, and left again. Most people coming in as replacements for the dead (or seriously wounded) did the same thing. It was no harm to Leehy.

And, really, no harm to Jim.

"Alright," he nodded. "I'll have a look at it and write a reference for Captain Zhao."

"Thank you, sir."

With that, the Commander was gone, and Jim pushed away the paperwork. It wouldn't change a thing. The cruelty of it was that Spock _hadn't _died - and how he hated himself for even thinking it. But there it was. Spock hadn't died, and they couldn't move on. They couldn't heal from it any more than he could.

So Leehy went - so what? The next would go too. And the one after that. And the one after that. And it would keep on that way until the command crew changed enough that the majority of them did not remember and wait for Spock's smooth baritone to echo from the science station.

Jim would never stop waiting for it.

He locked the doors to his quarters and turned off the console, sighing heavily. He was forever waiting, it seemed. It had been eighteen months since Spock had left the ship - so almost nineteen months since Jim had seen him. Or heard from him. He knew Spock would have gotten his letter (he'd re-sent it to Spock's personal account a week later, in case his yeoman had not been able to deliver the datapadd before the Vulcan left the ship) but he had never received a response.

Or responses to his weekly letters.

He wrote every week, religiously, telling Spock as much as he was allowed about the ship and her crew, talking about their friends, passing on wellwishes, asking after Spock's welfare, and asking forgiveness. He had never been answered. After tens of letters, ranging from the apathetic and factual to emotional outbursts on the screen, Jim had not once received a response.

He kept writing, though, in the hope that Spock was at least reading them.

He couldn't blame him for the radio silence. Jim knew he'd been a bastard about the whole affair, and even if Vulcans didn't hold a grudge (bullshit) he could understand if it hurt Spock too much to talk to him yet. He understood why he'd be frozen out. But it didn't stop him wishing for that reply - anything, just a line, to tell him that Spock was alright.

Or as alright as he could be.

Jim wasn't stupid. He knew that McCoy wrote similar letters to Spock, on a regular basis. Mostly about treatment and health and yada yada yada, and quite probably about Jim himself, but he didn't know if Spock responded. McCoy didn't really talk about him - or the letters. But he'd caught Uhura asking McCoy to send a quick line from her in one of his emails, and so Jim knew that they were happening.

He hoped the doctor was getting some response. That way, maybe Jim hadn't completely lost every connection to him. At this stage, he would take anything he could get.

Life, without Spock, was a quiet, lonely affair. It wasn't even miserable, because that would require some kind of emotional response. Jim felt...well. Vulcan. _Vulcan_. He felt Vulcan about the whole thing - completely and utterly numb. He went through the motions of his day, doing his job and his duty, but...

The command chair didn't hug him like it used to. His crew didn't cause those upswells of happiness and pride anymore. Evenings drinking with the doctor had more or less stopped entirely. He ate, slept, worked out, and worked, all in the correct measurements.

But here, he couldn't escape.

Spock's abandoned tunic lay curled under Jim's pillows, waiting for his lonely hands when he retired to bed for the night. But the pillow...the pillow smelled only of himself.

* * *

"Looks like that's cleared it up," McCoy said, putting the tricorder down and eyeing Ensign Chekov dubiously. "Do I _want _to know where you got a case of Tellarite measles?"

Chekov flushed and shook his head.

"Didn't think so," McCoy muttered, then - louder - said, "I would avoid Orion-shipped sex toys, Ensign. They have a nasty habit of being pre-used or, worse, actually composed of other life forms. Stick to Earth and colonial goods from now on."

The pink tint to Chekov's skin went magenta, and McCoy snorted.

"Any more spots, get your ass right back here. Dismissed."

When he didn't hear the ensign move, he turned back to the biobed to find the kid fidgeting and looking awkward. Which was a laugh after the discussion they'd had when he'd shivered his way into the medical bay two days ago, covered in bright orange, itching, pus-filled sores.

"Anything else, kid?" he softened his tone a little. While he didn't dole out much of the bedside manner for the likes of Jim and Sulu (read: reckless idiots) he knew the power that a kind word could have on less brash members of society. And first and foremost, despite his manner, McCoy was a doctor. If the kid needed a shoulder, he'd get one.

"I would...I just wanted to know how Mr. Spock is doing, doctor," Chekov blurted out in a rush, going pink again and biting his lip in a way that was oddly endearing.

McCoy's eyebrows rose. He should have known. Chekov and Scotty had been near-enough the only members of the crew able to keep up with the Vulcan brain at work, and they had both thoroughly enjoyed - in different ways - intellectual discussions with Spock. While Scotty was probably too engrossed in engineering to have yet figured out that Spock was _gone_, Chekov would have felt the loss, like a student losing a favourite teacher.

And of course the sneaky little bastard knew that McCoy was still in touch with him.

"He's doing just fine, kid," McCoy said, shrugging. "Not that he tells me much, but he seems to be alright."

"I haven't his personal address - if I sent you an email, would you forward it to him? There are some new theories concerning chaos theory that I would like to discuss..."

"Sure," McCoy shrugged. "Do you both good to hash out your physics mumbo-jumbo again. Honest, kid, I think he misses kicking your intellectual ass."

Chekov flushed again, smirked a little, beamed and hopped down off the biobed.

"Thank you, sir!" and he was gone.

McCoy sighed heavily, rubbing a hand over his face. He hoped he was right - and that Chekov wasn't going to figure out that McCoy had lied to him. Spock might be well enough to converse and communicate, but McCoy hadn't taken all those xenobiology classes at the Academy for nothing. In the little Spock _would _tell him, and reading between the lines, McCoy knew that Spock wasn't alright.

There was, after all, a big difference between being alive and living.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: Everyone gets some beer and a hug for being awesome.**

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Starbase Four Extension Twelve (or, as Humans and Jolians liked to shorten everything possible, S4-12) was a research station on Jolius II. Jolius I was the homeworld of the Jolians (funnily enough) and Jolia II was their uninhabited, empty, boring neighbour. Everybody agreed that it was boring. When Humans, new to space travel, had first stumbled across it in 2228, even they, new to alien worlds, had agreed it was boring.

There was nothing to actually research on Jolia II. It was a small planet, roughly the size of Earth's neighbour Venus, with endless grasslands and shallow oceans. The oceans were teeming with aquatic life, none of it sentient and none of it edible, and the grasslands produced exactly the same dull, tasteless seeds that, while edible, weren't particularly useful for anything. There was no sentient life at all - in fact, there was no life bigger than a cockroach, or more intelligent than the average Klingon two-year-old.

And only because nobody could be bothered to prove the fish even dumber than Klingon two-year-olds.

Jolia II's advantage was that it was on every single Federation trade route going. Jolia I was a planet full of friendly, amiable, technologically-advanced aliens with a fetish for all things exotic. Trading ships were constantly coming in and out, passing both Starbase Four and Jolia II. It was easy to import the necessary goods to perform research there.

Most of the research was chemical in nature. Medical research eventually required patients, and five hundred scientists didn't count, and biological research usually required new life to study. Chemical and physical research, however, had no such problems.

S4-12 was full of small Starfleet families, aging scientists retired from the field, and scientists that were more-or-less civilians but hadn't had the brains to go private with their skills and earn more money yet. Much of their gathered intellect was poured into enhancing ships (everything from weapons design to the warp core), enhancing terraforming techniques (which needed a _lot _more work, and were often practised on small segments of Jolia II) and genetic engineering to make different crops grow in different conditions.

It was challenging work - but ultimately _safe _work.

S4-12 didn't see a great number of aliens. Jolians came and went, obviously, but most didn't actually work there. Jolians, like Vulcans, were strict pacifists, and many didn't want to join what was essentially a military organisation. They came to sell their wares and socialise, but didn't live there in any sense.

There were, oddly, a surprising number of Andorians about. Andorians being one of the only species to routinely inter-breed with other species, knew a lot about genetics, and the genetic engineering teams usually had at least two or three of them. S4-12 was a statistical cluster - nowhere close to a quarter of Starfleet personnel were Andorian, yet almost a third of the station were.

Vulcans made up another ten percent of the personnel at the station, but most of these came and went with almost as much regularity as the Jolians. Many were actually private contractors from New Vulcan, joining a project for a brief period to share research details, and then leaving again as quickly as they'd arrived. Again, due to the needs of the colony, most of the Vulcans would visit the genetic engineering department.

As such, only two or three permanently worked at the station.

Most of the staff were only _really _aware of two.

The third was on the payroll, and on the books, and had a lab under his name, and his own projects. He had worked alone for the entire year that he had been there, and rarely if ever socialised with other members of the station. He _never _socialised outside the physics department. It was doubtful that the genetic engineers knew he was there, professionally speaking.

Yet, everyone was aware of him on a personal level, whether they realised who he actually was or not. They'd all seen him, moving between his lab and his quarters. He never ate in the mess hall, or came to any gatherings, or even departmental meetings. But the quarters were all on one corridor, and so they'd all seen him at one point or another, and they all remembered the sight, if not his name, rank and qualifications.

After all, nobody could argue that a Vulcan in a wheelchair wasn't a strange sight.

* * *

"New orders."

Jim said it, flatly, the moment he walked into the briefing room, and every back in the place stiffened.

"We're going home," he said, sinking into his chair, and the spines relaxed again.

"But...it's not been the five years yet..."

"Don't worry, Lieutenant, we're still getting paid," Jim tried for levity, but his voice sounded oddly hollow even to him. "The guys at the Southampton shipyards want all the flagships down in the next two years for massive engine refits. Some bright spark's managed to wring more out of the dilithium crystals, and a massive upgrade is needed. So we're touching down first, because we're the guys nearest to our completion date."

There were faint murmurs around the table.

"By the time we get there - two months from now, approximately - we'll be three months short. One month of that is mandatory shore leave for all of us - you included, Scotty, and don't look at me like that. I've got special orders to drop you off somewhere that _isn't _the Southampton shipyards."

Scotty scowled darkly and muttered something that sounded vaguely like a Gaelic curse. Jim ignored him.

"She'll not be down long. After the month shore leave, we'll have seven months to wait it out. Various short-term posts will be available - research, Academy teaching, short posts on other ships. You can transfer completely if you really want, or wait it out on your funds and hope I think you're good enough to re-request."

Once, that would have been a moment to laugh, to smile, or to joke with someone vaguely inappropriately. Now, it wasn't. Jim didn't even feel the urge.

"I'm sure you'll be hearing from various other commanders about your options at some point, so consider them carefully. Uhura, Barnett's already asking if you'll take up a post teaching phonology at the Academy."

She made a note of it, eyebrows furrowed in thoughtful contemplation.

"Dismissed."

When the others rose, McCoy didn't, instead leaning towards Jim with a frown. "And what will you be doing in those seven months?" he asked in a stage whisper.

Jim waited until the others had gone before dropping his shoulders and sighing heavily. "I don't know, Bones. I think I'm just going to sit it out. Try and relax. Unwind. You know."

McCoy simply stared at him, long and hard, with an unreadable look, before getting up without a hint as to what he was thinking, and walking out of the room.

Jim put his head in his hands, and fought back the headache that was threatening.

* * *

_Spock,_

_The ship's getting grounded in a couple of months for engine refits. Hell, you probably knew that before I did. I don't even know what the hell they're doing, and I don't wanna know._

_Fact is, I got seven months to kill, apparently. Minute we touch down, I'm coming out there, and you don't get a damn choice in the matter. And don't you quote regulations at me - I'm a Starfleet officer, I got scientific merit and qualifications, and if I want to stopover on Jolia II to have a peek at all their fancy genetic research, then nobody's going to damn well stop me. Especially not you. I'll be there. You got two months to get used to the idea._

_While I'm there, I want to have a word with your doctor. I want a second opinion on _my _opinion from someone who's actually seen you lately._

_Chekov was asking after you, by the way. I've attached the email he sent me for you. He's a good kid - you should get back in touch. He misses you, God help him._

_Usual rules - no response within 48 hours and I'm calling under an emergency code. And you know I'll do it._

_Leonard._

McCoy sent the message and sat back, rubbing at his temples. It had never sat well with him, passing Spock off to the Vulcans and going on their merry way into space. Damn it, the man was a _patient_, _his _patient, and McCoy hadn't been damn well _able _to treat him as he should have been treated.

And no matter how far technology progressed, McCoy simply couldn't treat a man without looking at him. Especially not a Vulcan man.

Especially not a friend.

Oh, he'd taken precautions. He _knew _that Spock wasn't doing as well as he should be. And it was a psychological blow, McCoy knew. Give him a reason to do it, and Spock would have adapted ruthlessly to the change. It would have taken time, but he would have done it.

McCoy suspected that he simply didn't have that reason. He'd been stripped of his job and long-term career. He'd been deprived of human contact on Vulcan - and McCoy was suspicious that it continued on S4-12, despite Spock having left New Vulcan behind almost a year ago. He'd lost his partner - a man that McCoy _knew _Spock loved with everything he had.

Simply put: he didn't have any reason to adapt. And McCoy was damn sure that he _wasn't _adapting. Psychological blows were the hardest to overcome, perhaps even more so in a species so finely attuned to their own brains.

McCoy wanted little more than to go and do his job, but he had a job _here _as well. Many lives mattered more than just one, and he had to remember that, even when he could see through the terse, factual, dry replies that he got from the Vulcan to the misery beneath. And when _McCoy_ could see how miserable Spock was...

He'd set up the forty-eight hour threat just to get a response. He'd never had to do it - yet - and they both knew what McCoy was actually afraid of. Half of his brain told him that Vulcans just didn't _do _that, that _death _wasn't logical in the slightest...and the other half reminded him that Humans did, and Spock was half-Human, after all.

He kept the threat, even as he prayed he'd never need it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: Sorry about the delay, but family is a bitch. A stupid bitch. Literally. And don't ask because my foul mood about it hasn't abated. However, I am in a slightly better mood because I got a new job today - starting tomorrow. So updates may be a little rarer than my recent rate.**

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It was only when Chekov asked if McCoy had forwarded his email that the doctor realised it was worse than he thought.

Until that moment, which he had to hastily cover up to avoid hurting the kid's feelings, he had honestly thought Spock was in contact with _someone _apart from himself. But now with Uhura _and _Chekov asking him to forward messages and getting no responses, he knew the truth. And if Jim wasn't in direct contact either...

Then the problem was getting worse.

Or always had been.

That evening, having never broached the touchy subject of the missing Vulcan with Jim, McCoy finally grit his teeth and bit the bullet. If those two things were possible at the same time.

"Do you ever talk to Spock?" he asked, quite suddenly over dinner in the mess, and Jim's fork paused halfway to his mouth. The lettuce leaf on the end shivered for a moment before he set it down.

"Not really."

McCoy narrowed his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean? Do you or don't you?"

Jim shrugged, not even fired up with his usual vitriol. He hadn't been fired up more-or-less since they had broken orbit of New Vulcan. Where before, Jim would have reacted to everything and anything as explosively as possible, now 'explosive' wasn't part of the man's vocabulary. "Well. I send him a message every week, but..."

He shrugged again, and McCoy's frown deepened. "But...?" he prodded.

"He doesn't answer me."

When McCoy simply sat there for a moment, Jim clarified.

"I mean, he doesn't reply at all. It's like I'm sending letters to someone who doesn't open his account."

If they were getting through, McCoy _knew _that Spock would be seeing them.

"I don't even know if he reads them," Jim said in a low tone, beginning to push the food around on his plate. "I mean, I wouldn't blame him if he didn't, but...I just...I want him to read them. I tell him...I tell him things he needs to know."

McCoy bit back the response that wanted to come out, but Jim shrugged again.

"Yeah, I know, I should have said them when he was _here_, but I _couldn't_."

McCoy didn't have training in psychology or counselling - one of the nurses served in that function - but he knew enough to know when to let someone keep talking, and when to interrupt.

"I just want him to know I'm _sorry_," Jim whispered.

For the longest moment, there was silence, neither man looking at the other.

"Bones?"

He glanced back up at Jim, and winced at the misery written in every line of the Captain's face.

"Next time you send a message, can you...can you ask him to reply to mine?"

"Yeah, Jim. Yeah, I'll do that."

* * *

_Dear Spock,_

_Will you reply to this one? I guess not - though I'm still hoping you will. I do check, you know. I'll check for this one, too. Get back from alpha shift tomorrow and the first thing I'll do is check my inbox. Feel like leaving me a line? Anything? Even a blank screen with just your account signature on it? Anything at all?_

_Guess not._

_But Bones has got me worried about you, you know. We don't talk about you. He thinks I'm a prick for what I did - hell, I think I'm a prick for it. I won't rehash that - I've told you everything I can about it already. But anyway, we don't talk about you. So when he brought you up at dinner today...you can see why I'm worried._

_He asked if I comm you._

_I've actually called you four times, did you know that? Four times since you left, and every time...live subspace transmission. I get patched right through but you leave your console off because I've had to leave messages. Do you listen to those? I hope you listen to those._

_Can you start answering me, someday?_

_I do get it. I was a complete fucking prick and I get that you probably don't ever want to see me again but...this is scaring me. I'm scared for you. I don't - honest, I don't have a fucking clue how you are, and Bones won't tell me anything. Just says you're fine and changes the subject and you're not fine. You're not._

_This is going to make me sound godawful but...I'm not fine, and that's because you're not here. So some tiny part of me hopes that maybe...maybe that same part of you isn't fine either._

_And yeah, I should be shot for even thinking that. You've got enough to deal with as it is._

_It's not the same without you. I know, I know - said it before and all that. But it's not. Leehy left the ship at Starbase Eight this morning - Sulu's on interim duties until we get back to Earth and our shore leave. Did Bones tell you about our leave? Massive chunk of time off. I won't know what to do with it all. But back to my original point - it's not the same without you. It's...it's quiet. Kind of robotic. Empty._

_I'm empty._

_Even if you came back here and confronted me about it, I'll deny having ever written this until my dying day, but I still have one of your uniform shirts under my pillow. It still smells a little bit like you, if I try hard enough. I still have some of your incense and I burn it on the bad days, to feel like you're there._

_Only you're not here, and it's fucking awful without you._

_I know I didn't handle it right. I know I can't make it up to you and I know you are completely within your rights to demand that I never come near you again. Hell, you've probably moved on by now and found someone new and...and I can't continue that train of thought. It hurts._

_I hurt._

_Shit, I'm fucking crying now. This is what happens when I dwell on you. Nobody wants to talk about you in front of me - it's like you're fucking dead. And I want to scream and tell them you're not - but you kind of are. You won't talk to me, I don't think you talk to Bones, and Chekov told me this morning that he hasn't heard from you despite getting Bones to forward his message to you._

_God, it's not just me. We miss you. We. All of us._

_We're all hurting and it's not going away and I..._

_I'm a bad person because God, I don't want you to hurt, but I do. I want you to miss us as much as I miss you. I want you to want to be here, to just _talk _to me again, to anyone! Just...don't be dead._

_It feels like you're dead._

_I have to stop with this maudlin mood. Seriously. I just said maudlin. Who the fuck says that - apart from your great-grandmother or something. Or you. Shit, I'd even pay to hear your long-winded physics speeches right about now._

_Just, for the love of God, Spock, read this one. Answer me. Even if it's just to tell me to fuck off. I can't take much more worrying about you. Feel like I'm developing an ulcer or something. I should give it a Vulcan name._

_Please, write back to me this time. Please._

_And I'll keep signing off like this until you tell me not to:_

_Love you,_

_Jim._

Jim hit 'send' and sat back, scrubbing furiously at his eyes. About half the time, he ended up crying when he wrote such letters. He wasn't an idiot, and he was fairly sure that the only reason he hadn't had a breakdown yet was that he was pouring out all of his emotion into those letters, whether or not Spock ever read them.

He'd have to ask Bones if Spock ever mentioned him at all.

He left the console on, so that the beep of any incoming messages would wake him up, and went through his evening routine with sluggish motions that spoke of a tiredness deeper than in the body. His very mind was tired, exhausted from fear and strain and self-loathing.

This time, he put on Spock's tunic entirely, curling up inside it like a small child wanting its parent to come home, and smelling the faint traces of the man he'd lost lingering on the worn fabric.

The console stayed silent all night.

* * *

The next time McCoy came to send a message to Spock, he included Jim's request, worded as neutrally as he possibly could (and damn, but he wasn't used to having to be neutral).

Spock's reply, thirty-two hours later, gave no mention whatsoever of Jim.


	4. Chapter 4

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**Notes: Thank you all for being patient, or poking me, whichever you did! Work got in the way for a bit there, but here's the next installment!**

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McCoy took one look at Jim when the Captain slouched into Sickbay, some three days later, and got on the warpath.

"He hasn't answered you, has he?" he asked flatly, pushing Jim down into the chair opposite McCoy's desk and getting out the bourbon that he wasn't meant to have.

"No," Jim said, knocking the first glass back and slamming it down for a refill at once. "Nothing," his voice wavered. "Shit, I'd even take a blank message. Or a fuck off. He can tell me to fuck off - it would be enough!"

"Jim," McCoy said. "I'm not asking as your friend anymore - I'm asking as his doctor. When was the last time you heard from Spock?"

The Captain didn't respond for several moments, eyeing the desk as though it had insulted his mother, before finally whispering: "About ten minutes before the cave-in."

McCoy's jaw clenched.

"Never since?"

"No," Jim whispered. "I was...shit. I didn't...I wouldn't come and see him, and then...shit, Bones, I can't blame him for this! I wouldn't want to talk to me either but...but it's like...it's like he's _died_. Hell, if he _did_, would I even hear about it?"

"Have you ever called him, live?"

"Always get sent to the voice recording," Jim choked. "It's still the automated one, too. He's not personalised it. I haven't heard his _voice _since..."

The fine tremor in Jim's voice cracked and suddenly there was a rush of tears. McCoy had seen Jim cry the grand total of four times, and the sudden onslaught was a surprise, but not a shock. He wasn't blind. Jim was headed fast for a nervous breakdown, and while half of McCoy wanted to tell Jim to suck it up, half of him twisted in sharp sympathy.

The fact was, Jim was a kid. A genius and a cocky little shit brimming over with confidence, but he was a kid. He'd done the wrong thing, and was learning the hard way what life does to people who do the wrong thing. Or, more accurately, what _other _people do to people who do the wrong thing. And Jim was an idiot in a lot of ways, but mostly petty ways.

The way he'd handled Spock's accident went beyond that.

Part of McCoy insisted that Jim was at fault for this. Part of him was right. But the other half twisted at seeing his best friend in such pain, and cursed Spock for not overcoming whatever-it-was that created such radio silence.

But _then_, even worse, McCoy probably wouldn't want to talk to Jim if he were in Spock's position either.

He couldn't blame either of them - but _God_, did he want to!

"It's like he's _died_," Jim hissed through the tears, and McCoy sighed heavily, hauling Jim bodily off the chair and onto the floor, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and rocking them like he'd used to comfort his little girl when she'd had a bad dream.

Only Jim was twenty-five years older than Joanna, give or take a few, and this wasn't a damn dream.

"I just...I need to know he's okay," Jim choked. "I need to..."

"Jim," McCoy said flatly. "I'm going to be really blunt with you, okay?"

Jim nodded, scrubbing a sleeve over his face.

"He's not okay. There's no way that man is okay. The responses I get could be from a pure-blood, full-on Vulcan and you'd never notice the difference. He doesn't talk to me about his colleagues, or his day, or how he is medically. He doesn't even talk about his work. I know damn well that he only responds to me at all because I've threatened him with the emergency code - repeatedly. I don't even know who his damn doctor is, so I can't talk to him. And if I push too hard, Spock just tells me I'm not his doctor anymore and so I don't need to know!"

He took a deep breath to calm himself down, and rubbed his palm soothingly against Jim's upper arm.

"I really don't know much more than you do at this point, Jim. But I can tell you that he's not okay. I can tell you that he'd be doing a lot better if he still had you..."

Jim took a shuddering breath, pressing the heel of his hand into one eye.

"Jim. Do you still love him?"

A wet choking told McCoy that the tears had started up again, and he tugged Jim closer. The fair head nodded into his shoulder, and the words were muffled by his shirt when they came: "Oh, God, of course I do. I've always loved him."

"That wasn't love, what you did."

"I _know_," an anguished wail.

"And will you still love him?"

"I..."

"Because even if you do bottle up your cowardice and see him again, he's not the same man anymore. He's been damaged, and I'm not sure anyone can fix it now," McCoy breathed. "Not me, not his new doctor, not Vulcans...and not you. I don't think it's _possible _to..."

"I still love him," Jim whispered. "I'll still love him."

"Maybe you will, maybe..."

"I _will_."

"Even if you _do_," McCoy said diplomatically. "Even if you do, he needs to know that. He needed to know that _months _ago, Jim, and you didn't let him."

Jim shuddered, forcefully enough to call it a spasm.

"He won't listen to me. I don't think he reads my messages. He won't..."

"Then _make _him."

* * *

McCoy spent most of the rest of the evening cleaning up the emotional mess that was Jim Kirk - including forcing some food into him and escorting him back to his quarters with sleeping pills to get some actual rest instead of the insomnia that Jim denied, but McCoy _knew _he was suffering from. You'd think people would realise that lying to their doctors got them nowhere.

Instead of going to bed, as he'd planned, McCoy returned to Sickbay with his clearance codes and jumped security hoops until he had Spock's updated personnel file up in front of him.

Personnel files appeared different to serving doctors than they did to commanding officers or examination officers. McCoy didn't get to read reports on Spock's latest missions (not that he'd have any) or his work (unless it had posed a health risk, which, apparently, it hadn't) or even his 'personal' information such as spouse (irrelevant), children (irrelevant) or relatives (irrelevant).

No, McCoy got to see, inside and out, Spock's medical information. Any injury he'd ever had, the results of any medical he'd ever had, blood type, body scans, medications past and present, active duty clearances (very limited) and - what McCoy was really after - current medical practitioners.

Every Starfleet officer had two primary medical officers. On ships, it was invariably the Chief Medical Officer and either another doctor, or a nurse. Hybrids or unusual aliens like Spock tended to have three - CMO, specialist, and another doctor or nurse. Spock had only avoided three on the _Enterprise _because McCoy _was _the specialist.

Bases and research stations had slightly different rules. Two doctors were necessary, but only one of them had to be a Starfleet officer. The other - usually the specialist - could be a civilian from any Federation or allied planet, and could even be the primary caregiver if he/she/it/they/other passed basic security checks.

So when two names came up on McCoy's files, he was wholly unsurprised.

The first name was clearly the base doctor - it was a Jolian name, with a list of Jolian qualifications, and no Starfleet rank. McCoy didn't recognise them, and suspected that it was simply a matter of base policy and she or he had probably never met Spock in a medical capacity.

The other, however, made him from.

Dr. Lucy Ann Leehy.

He'd heard that name before.

* * *

"Let me get this," Jim said, pressing the heel of his hand into his eye socket and wondering idly if he could blind himself thus, "not a single person in this room _ever _hears from Spock?"

The command crew stared back at him, their faces in varying degrees of shock and horror at what they were working out.

McCoy's lecture had made Jim suspicious, and the first thing he'd done when he came on shift the next morning was to call an emergency command meeting. McCoy had been absent, performing an appendectomy, but he didn't need to hear this. Everyone else did - Jim included.

And it was quickly apparent that Spock was only _ever _speaking to McCoy. And not even _speaking_.

The reason was quite simple. They were being shut out. Spock did not answer any messages - although Uhura said he'd spoken to her right up until he left Vulcan for his new posting a year ago - that were sent to him. After a while, everyone had become aware of the fact that nobody received a response but McCoy, and had sent their messages through him.

Very occasionally, Spock would return a line or two for them, but nothing more, and never very often.

"It's like he just doesn't want to _know_," Uhura tried to explain, and Jim groaned heavily.

"So who in the hell _does _he talk to?" he demanded. "Unless he's got a whole new social life on - wherever it is again..."

"S4..."

"_Thank you_, Lieutenant," Jim growled. "Unless he has a whole new social life, his only contact in the world seems to be McCoy!"

Judging by the facial expressions around the table, he wasn't the only one who found that slightly disturbing.

"We're going to try harder," he snapped, glowering at the opposite wall as if it had personally offended him. "You're all going to step up your efforts - myself included - and we're going to damn well get through to him. He's not fucking _dead_, and we're going to stop pretending that he _is_!"

"But sir..."

"I know it's like talking to a brick wall," Jim snapped, "but for God's sake, we're going to get _through _it!"

Nobody would have guessed that it would be Sulu who 'got through it' first.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: A bit shorter than the last few, but the content should make up for it. Surprise, VeeDub!********

* * *

**

Admiral Christopher Pike was _angry_.

He was very rarely angry. He had always been a stern man, even in the military world of Starfleet, but he was usually collected and not prone to the fits of temper that shook most men from time to time. His captaincy had stripped the little temper he had of him and so, when Pike was truly _angry_, it was probably well justified.

This, in Pike's mind, was justified.

Kirk had called him the previous evening, asking shifty questions about Commander Spock and Chris' relationship with him these days. That in itself had seemed odd to Chris. He didn't know what Kirk thought about him and Spock, but it had always been in the realm of things Kirk didn't seem to want to discuss. He had never even acknowledged before that Chris was Spock's previous commanding officer, never mind asked after their friendship.

So to get that call...

Well, nobody had ever been able to get any bullshit past Chris. Four younger sisters does that to a man. He had squeezed the whole sorry story out of Jim - and gone up in smoke.

To _think _that...!

Chris had honestly laboured under the illusion that Spock was alright - or as much as he could be. He hadn't been surprised that Kirk hadn't stepped down - Kirk had dragged himself out of a shitty life for that captaincy, and he was young enough and stubborn enough to hold onto it. Chris had felt the addiction of the chair - he knew that Kirk wouldn't step down from it. Hell, in Kirk's shoes, Chris wasn't sure _he _would have stepped down either.

But he'd thought they'd be safe from those issues. Spock was Vulcan, and the most obstinate, stubborn man Chris had ever met. He was worse than Kirk, for crying out loud! When the request for a posting to S4-12 had arrived on his desk not six months after the accident, Chris had been puffed up with pride, positive that Spock was stubbornly getting back to his career and overcoming the setbacks.

Yeah, well, fuck that little idea right up the ass.

He'd wrenched the story out of Kirk, and reamed his ass for it. No communication, no calls, and _no fucking clue how the man was doing_. Jesus _Christ _- Chris had been there! He'd been, more or less, _right there_! He _knew _how much goddamn _support _was needed, and then, eighteen months down the motherfucking line, alone comes Kirk with some pathetic, sorry excuses and that little bit of oh, just so you know, Spock's been coping with this _completely on his own_!

Chris could have _killed _him.

Chris had worked with Spock since his graduation. He'd been a brilliant mind - scientific and logical, like all Vulcans, but also inventive enough for command and rapid decision-making. He'd been jumped straight to junior-grade lieutenant in the science department on Chris' ship after his graduation, and Chris had taken interest from the moment Spock had told him, in very polite Vulcan manners, to get the hell out of his lab during such critical experiments.

Oh, if Jim Kirk thought he could understand Vulcan-speak, Chris was even better.

Chris _knew _Spock. They had clicked right from the start, perfectly in tune from the very beginning. On a fundamental level, Chris understood Spock - that streak of ruthlessness running side-by-side with a thick cord of compassion, and edged with a humour that was deadly when it struck. Chris was one of the few people who could honestly say they _knew _Spock - not the Vulcan, or the workaholic officer, but the man. He knew him, almost as well as Kirk did.

And fucking hell, judging by that call, _better _than Kirk did.

Chris hadn't been worried at the silence. He and Spock were friends of the sort that wouldn't speak for months on end, then meet one day, or share a call, and discuss everything under the sun with an ease that spoke of having never been parted. Chris didn't do small talk any more than Spock did. He had called a few times when Spock was on New Vulcan receiving treatment, but his offer to visit had been politely turned down. Spock had seemed normal - hell, he'd been as he always was, albeit more tired-looking than usual. That was to be expected.

Spock had_ seemed_ fine.

Clearly not.

Right after he killed Jim, Chris was going to kill _Spock_.

Years ago, Chris had realised exactly how out of place Spock felt among humans, and had gone out of his way to make it easier on him. He had made it clear - or thought he had - that he had no such preconceptions of what was proper for Vulcans, and that if Spock ever needed his assistance or his support, he had it.

He had _thought _Spock had gotten that message.

Well, he was going to bloody well _enforce _that message.

The morning after the call came in, Chris submitted his demand for emergency compassionate leave - which, as Barnett owed him a favour, wouldn't be denied - and packed a small bag to go to S4-12. He had regained the ability to walk - albeit with a cane and a distinctive limp - and so had no trouble bullying his way onto the next shuttle off Earth.

From Goloros II, he would get a stopover shuttle to Starbase 9, then another to Jolia II. It wouldn't be a fun trip in the slightest, and no doubt he would be in a foul mood when he arrived, but then, Chris had always been much better at bullying Spock into doing as he was told when he was in a bad mood.

He was under no illusions that this was going to be _easy_.

If Spock didn't want to be disturbed, then Chris was going to force him to be. He knew the dangers - and the temptation - of retreating when badly wounded, of hiding away and not letting anyone see what you'd become. He knew that all too well. It was _easier_, to hide away and pretend that everything was alright, when it wasn't.

Chris had been lucky. On Earth, surrounded by supportive family and friends and colleagues, he'd been pushed back into real life even when he didn't want to be. He'd recovered as much as he could, in much less time that he _should_.

But Spock...Spock didn't have that. Chris had assumed - wrongly, and he wanted to kick himself for it, but he had assumed - that Spock _did _have that. That Jim, even through their separation, would have sorted something out. That Spock's family - what was left of it - would have supported him on New Vulcan. He had seen him go from New Vulcan to S4-12 with pride, _thinking that he had recovered._

If Jim was an idiot, so was Chris.

But the difference was that Chris was going to set things right.

* * *

A week after the lecturing that spurred Jim back into action, McCoy marched into his office with a datapadd and dropped it on his desk.

The doctor was pale-faced, his mouth set in a grim line, and his hands shivered spasmodically, as though itching to grab something and smash it. Jim had rarely seen him so upset, and hastily waved him into the chair as he picked up the padd.

"What is it?"

"I have new orders," McCoy said, voice thin with...something. Jim didn't know what. "I'm being called off the _Enterprise_. I'm to go on to Earth immediately."

"What? Why?" Jim's mind worked faster than his mouth. "Is it your family? Oh God, is your Jo alright?"

"She's fine," McCoy said thinly. "It's not her."

"Then why? Who's called you back?"

"Admiral Pike."

"_Chris_? Why the hell would...?"

"So I'm there prepared when he brings Spock back."

"_What_?"

McCoy waved at the padd, hand wavering in the air unsteadily.

Jim opened the highlighted file, and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

_Dr. McCoy,_

_New orders. Get off the _Enterprise_ and get to San Francisco ASAP. Bringing Spock back to Earth from S4-12 on medical leave, effective immediately._

_Going to need you._

_Signed,_

_Admiral Christopher Pike._

"Oh Jesus," Jim breathed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes: I'm ill again. Seriously, is this kick-the-author-in-the-balls season? This chapter is for VeeDub due to her prodding and impatience.****

* * *

**

In terms of getting hold of things that he probably shouldn't be able to get hold of, Sulu could outwit more or less anyone. While people like Captain Kirk were well-connected within Starfleet, Sulu had contacts all over the Federation.

He'd been schooled in a very large, very private and very exclusive school. Such schools, these days, were home to the human children of well-off families or Starfleet officials, and alien children. As such, most of Sulu's friends from childhood and his teens were scattered widely over the Federation and even beyond it. One of his former girlfriends had been killed on Vulcan; his last girlfriend before he went to San Francisco was out on a private exploration ship, attempting to prove (or disprove) the existence of a species that had apparently attacked a Starfleet ship almost a hundred years ago.

As such, Sulu could get his hands on _anything _if he bribed someone hard enough.

Jenny, the ex on Vulcan, had been there for three years before Nero came along, and while _she _didn't talk to Sulu much, her mother had adored him. Jenny's mother, Carla, was a botanist herself, and of Japanese descent - Sulu had been her picture-perfect ideal of a son-in-law. Honestly, Carla had been more upset than Jenny and Sulu when it didn't work out.

The consequence was that Carla had stayed in touch with Sulu, hoping that they would eventually solve their differences. And while it had never happened, Sulu was still - even after Jenny's death - in the position of being able to ask small favours.

Right after Jim's rant in the command meeting, Sulu had sent Carla a request, asking whether Jenny had ever sent her any Vulcan plants or seeds. He had included the bare minimum on what was going on - merely saying that a Vulcan colleague was unwell - and had wheedled (manfully, of course) at her to send some over.

Easy.

They had arrived two days later, sent on an express delivery that he'd had to bribe Uhura into accepting without informing the Captain. (How Spock hadn't taken advantage of the ability to get things delivered without Jim knowing, Sulu would never understand. Being the XO was a _dream_.)

From there, he'd sent them straight to S4-12, with a short note.

They were _balek'ta _seeds. Technically, they were from one of Vulcan's neighbouring planets - but as the Vulcans had explored those first, and brought the seeds back to Vulcan, they had been there long enough to count. They achieved maturity in only eight weeks, and spent most of their lives hopefully blooming whenever they felt a breeze. Considering they were mountain-dwelling plants, that was most of the time. Vulcan mountains had been white-capped not from snow, but from flowers. They were also one of the _only _Vulcan plants to flower at all.

Sulu had no idea whether Spock had grown up in a region with _balek'ta _flowers, but he figured it was better than nothing.

Two days after _that_, he received a short note - merely a thank you, really - from Spock, and there was a very brief sense of elation across the bridge crew. (Sulu, frankly, was surprised and smug that _he'd _gotten through when Jim and Uhura had both failed.)

Then the rumour swept that Dr. McCoy was leaving, to go to Spock, and the elation promptly died again.

* * *

Jim didn't know what to think. Or do, for that matter.

For one thing, he was getting very mixed signals. While Spock's silence and Pike's sudden request for McCoy to go to Earth to attend to him were _more _than alarming (screw that, they were fucking terrifying) Sulu had also said something about having gotten a short thanks from Spock for some present or other. So exactly how bad _was _it? If Spock could - did - thank Sulu for the present, then he couldn't be quite so badly off as Jim's imagination was telling him, right?

Yeah, right.

If they'd been in a hospital, Jim would have been pacing outside the ward by now.

_Yeah, outside the ward. You'd never go in, though, would you? _he snarled at himself bitterly. He'd been petrified of _seeing _the damage, of it all becoming _real_...

Fuck it - he was still petrified of that.

McCoy was packed up and gone in less than two days, harrassing his way into a seat on an express shuttle from the nearest starbase. Not twelve hours later, Jim had sent a desperate message to Spock begging him to get in touch - and when nothing happened, his imagination spiraled out of control. He was imagining all sorts of things - suicide, self-harm, mental illness; everything he wouldn't normally associate with Spock - or any Vulcan - in the slightest.

Jim lasted about thirty-six hours before caving, and calling Pike.

"I can't tell you more until Dr. McCoy can tell _me _more," Chris said flatly, when Jim pleaded with him, and Jim shook his head, standing his ground.

"I'm not asking for a medical diagnosis! I'm asking _how he is_. What the fu - hell, _hell _- make you take him back to Earth?" Jim demanded.

Chris' face hardened. "Are you questioning my judgement?"

"No," Jim took a deep breath. "No, I'm not. I'm...I'm _scared_, Chris. You must have seen something that made you think he needed to be back on Earth. That he needed McCoy. That..."

"He doesn't need Leonard, he needs _you_," Chris snapped. "But as I understand it, not only will you not go near him now, you haven't set eyes on him since _before _the accident!"

Jim went white.

"Jesus _Christ_, Kirk!" Chris actually threw up his hands. "The man that you supposedly love had his life torn from him - quite literally! - and you pack him off without so much as a fucking goodbye! It's been eighteen months, and to look at him, you'd think it had happened _yesterday_!"

"Wh-?"

"He's in a fucking _chair, _Kirk!" Chris shouted, outraged now. "He never got _fitted _with prosthetics - he refused the goddamn treatment! It wasn't _fucking_ necessary! And why? Because he _wouldn't need them to function on S4-12_! And I'll tell you this for nothing too - he _isn't _functioning! You and I both know that man is a _genius_, even by Vulcan standards, and the work I saw him doing on S4-12 could have been completed faster by your fucking _helmsman_!"

Jim could vaguely feel his jaw sagging, the muscles twitching in shock, and his brain short-circuiting every time he tried to formulate a response.

"I don't know what the hell is wrong with him upstairs," Chris spat, "but he keeps zoning out, he has difficulty meditating properly, and he's sleeping three times as much as a _human_ would need to, nevermind a _Vulcan_! I don't even want to _think _about his self-image right now! God knows he didn't have much of one before, but now? _Christ_."

"Oh God," Jim heard himself whimper.

"He's been destroyed, Jim," Chris said, slowly beginning to calm down, the fury giving way to an icy anger that was almost as bad. "He's been ripped apart and he's bleeding out from the inside. He's _dying_. And I'm not fucking exaggerating. He might not be on the brink of suicide, but he might as well be. Leonard just about pitched a fit when he saw him, and I agree with him."

"Chris...I...I..."

"Don't," Chris sighed wearily, massaging his temples with his fingertips. "Just don't. You know who you remind me of, Kirk?"

"Who?"

"Your mother."

Jim froze. The very blood in his veins suddenly seemed to run cold, and everything in him focused in on what came next.

"You lose someone you love, so you abandon everyone else and throw yourself back into your career. That's exactly what you did, and that's exactly what your mother did. I understand grief, Jim. I do understand it. But you _didn't lose him_. He didn't _die_, and you seemed to forget that, somewhere along the line. At least, in your mother's case, George died. But Spock didn't. And if you've lost him now, then it's all your own doing. Just like it was your mother's doing that she lost _you_."

Jim could feel himself shivering.

_You're just like your mother_, the little voice in his head said, spitting with distaste. _You're no better than her_.

Well, fuck that for a transporter malfunction.

He was _not _going be another Winona.

"We'll reach Earth in four days."


	7. Chapter 7

********

**Notes: I love you people so much, I'm putting off a paper due in two days for this update. This is how much I love you. Also, if somone could pay for groceries, that would be awesome. (Alternate option is that I lose ten pounds.)**

**

* * *

**

They reached Earth in three and a half days. Jim suspected that the unholy trinity of Sulu, Scotty and Chekov had a lot to do with it, and probably illegally too, but Starbase One didn't dare to question Lieutenant Uhura a request for _anything_, never mind docking space ahead of schedule. Denying a request from Lieutenant Uhura was considered to be rather like voluntarily opting to have one's dick removed with a cheese grater. Jim would know: he'd started the analogy.

And Starfleet didn't train no fools of men, even in docking control.

Jim wasn't going to ask questions about it, and merely booked himself a room at the Starfleet accommodation for temporarily-grounded officers without explaining as to why he needed it right now, as opposed to tomorrow. He was the first off the ship, armed with a datapadd of messages from easily half the damn crew, and left the equally unholy duo of Sulu and Uhura to sort out the administration issues that were technically his job.

McCoy met him at the shuttleport in San Francisco, grim-faced and stern. There were bags under his eyes, and he shifted almost restlessly on his feet as Jim approached.

"How bad?" Jim demanded.

"Bad," came the flat response, and they fell into step as they headed for the exit. "How much did Pike tell you?"

Jim took a shaky breath. "That...that he's having some kind of...mental issues...and that he's not...he's not mobile."

"That's one way of putting it," McCoy muttered. "His brain's a mess. If there's one things Humans have over Vulcans, it's in the ability of the brain to react to trauma. We're not fantastic at it, but we get by. Vulcans aren't so lucky."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying he's still reeling from the blow, that's what I'm saying," McCoy grunted. "His telepathy's lost half of its input services - that hand," he added, when Jim frowned. "It doesn't seem to understand _why _the input has been interrupted, and from what I can gather, it's trying to shut down and the rest of his brain is too busy fighting it."

Jim swallowed. "So...?"

"Sometimes," McCoy said slowly, "he can't read my mind when I've got his hand on my meld points. He tells me he hasn't been able to detect other Vulcans since the accident - I don't know exactly what he means, but I think he means that Vulcans have a basic ability to sense each other without contact. I'll have to check it out. But he described it as sensory deprivation - like being rendered suddenly deaf. He's always been able to hear thoughts, and feel his own people. Now he can't."

"Jesus," Jim whispered.

"From what I can tell, his brain is desperately trying to stop his telepathy collapsing entirely. He's losing control over his emotions - oh, he's not lashing out. He's shutting down. His brain is trying to keep the telepathy up and the emotional response down - so when the emotions flare up, he disconnects from the world around him entirely."

They reached the hovercar, and McCoy shot Jim a defeated look.

"Catatonia, Jim."

Jim hissed in a sharp breath.

"He hasn't got the mental resources to recover from the injuries. He can't control his own mind, so he can't go into any trances to ease the problem. He can't concentrate long enough to divert the telepathy to the remaining hand, or to the rest of his skin. He can't do a damn thing about it until he has control of his mind back, but he's not _getting _that back until he improves!"

"Catch twenty-two," Jim murmured, sinking heavily into the passenger seat.

"Yeah," McCoy grunted, slamming the driver-side door and starting the engine. "I haven't a clue how to help him. I got a healer from the Embassy round two days ago, and she refused to meld with him. Too dangerous, apparently. The wayward telepathy is a health risk to other Vulcans trying to connect with him. He's on his own in there."

Jim vaguely noted that his hands were shaking, and he curled them into helpless fists in his lap.

"If he keeps deteriorating," McCoy murmured, "then I'm worried his telepathy will collapse and shut down. Now we _know _what happens to Vulcans who lose their telepathic abilities."

"What?"

"Over the next eight months, they slowly lose the ability to regulate and control their brain and body. The brain realises there's still damage, and goes into healing trances repeatedly, but the demands of the body are no longer regulated, so they're short and ineffective. The ability to meditate is destroyed by the repeated trances and the damage that inflicts on the brain. The emotional outbursts interfere with the healing process, so the chemicals responsible for emotion are no longer produced..."

"Bones..." Jim croaked.

"Between seven and ten months after the telepathy is lost," McCoy finished heavily, "the patient slips into a permanent catatonic state. Large areas of the brain die due to lack of use. With intensive care, you can keep a Vulcan in that state alive for perhaps six more months, but they never regain consciousness. Then, usually, a last-ditch attempt is made by a damaged and panicked brain at saving the life, and the resulting healing trance interferes with the machinery. And then they die."

He pulled over, and slung an arm around Jim's shoulders. Jim realised that he was shivering.

"If we can't help him recover his telepathy," McCoy murmured, "then he's got a year and a half to live, at the most."

Jim took a deep breath, closing his eyes and swallowing against the bile that rose in his throat. "So," he croaked, "how do we do that?"

"The first step," McCoy murmured, "is to give him a _reason_."

* * *

When they arrived at Admiral Pike's home - a generous house on the outskirts of the city - they congregated in the kitchen with mugs of tea, and heavy expressions.

"I expect Dr. McCoy has filled you in?" Pike asked, sliding into the seat opposite Jim at the table. "So you know why you're here?"

Jim swallowed.

"I'm sure that part of the problem is Spock not wanting to _stop _the problem," McCoy said. "I've consulted with Vulcan healers and xenobiologists, and they're unanimous about it. At this point, if he wanted to take control, he might still be able to do it. It would be difficult, but he could still just about do it."

"So how am I supposed to help?" Jim demanded bitterly. "I'm not Vulcan! I'm not even a telepath! And..."

"And you're the only one that Spock's ever let into his head," McCoy interrupted. "Even in this state, his mind is going to recognise you. If he's going to reach out for anyone, it's going to be you."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Let's just stick with the plan that he does," Pike warned, and Jim felt his stomach clench.

"The priority is getting him stabilised mentally," McCoy shrugged. "Then we can think about the mobility issue - and the goddamn _mess _of a self-image he's been left with. Prosthetics and self-esteem are no use to a dead man."

"Bones!" Jim protested.

"Don't you fucking dare tell me what to say," McCoy snapped, jabbing a finger in Jim's direction. "If you'd done what you _should _have done, then we wouldn't be here, now would we? If you'd done the right fucking thing, he wouldn't be upstairs on a steady road to _dying_, and me sitting here with no idea how to stop him!"

The blood drained from Jim's face and he rose shakily from the table.

"Dr. McCoy," Pike said sternly. "Kirk, sit _down_. We're all to blame; we forgot that we weren't dealing with a human. We forgot about the extra dimension here. It's not going to be as simple as picking him up, dusting him off and giving him a new set of limbs. We have to actually figure out the right thing to do now."

"Why," Jim asked shakily, "did he leave Vulcan if he knew this was possible?"

McCoy sighed heavily. "Jim. I'm going to say it once, and then never again. I don't think Spock _wants _to live with this."

Jim sat down heavily, feeling as if the world had physically rocked under him.

"I..." he began, staring blankly at the table.

McCoy's tricorder beeped, and he glanced at it instantly. His frown eased a little, and he stood up. "He's awake."

Jim staggered upright. "I want to see him."

"Well," McCoy drawled, "it's about damn time."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes: This is the last chapter of Mid-Afternoon! The sequel, The Fierceness of a Storm, will arrive after my papers are handed in. (I still haven't written them.)********

* * *

**

Jim hovered at the door to the guest room as Pike and McCoy entered to see to Spock.

"He doesn't know you're here," Pike had told him, "and the last thing he needs is a rude surprise right now."

Jim hadn't argued, and found himself staring at the light silver wheelchair in the hall. It didn't look like anything special - just another wheelchair, just like the one Pike had had...but it still gave him shivers. Imagining Spock in...well. He didn't have to imagine now, did he? He was about to find out - and part of him still wanted to walk away, to deny it had happened, to keep that perfect image of Spock in his head and...

Only now he didn't have the choice. Keep that image, and let him die? Jim could freely admit he was a prick sometimes, but that...that was...

"Jim," Pike's voice was low, and his face pinched. "We're not sure how much he's aware of right now, but..."

He shrugged, and let Jim into the bedroom.

The room was almost clinical in its cleanliness and colouring. It was large and spacious, with pristine wooden furniture and plain white walls, a beige carpet trying to achieve the medium between the two colours. The sunlight lay in stripes across the floor, broken up by the white blinds that had only been half-raised. The window was open, Jim surmised from the gentle clatter of said blinds, and a faint breeze ghosted through the air. A single bed, with white sheets and a wooden frame, jutted into the room from the west wall, framed by bedside tables and a dark red armchair that seemed out of place in here. It had to come from another room; even men like Pike and Kirk knew more about household decor than that.

And in the bed...

Jim choked, and stopped dead.

From the doorway, he couldn't see Spock's upper body; McCoy was leaning over him, murmuring quietly in that soothing southern drawl he reserved for the very sick, and hiding Spock's head and most of his chest from view.

But Jim didn't need that view.

Because what he got was the sight of the bedsheets, flat and smoothed down, from the end of the bed to roughly halfway up, when they rose sharply over...over Spock's thighs. They rose with none of the gradual increase of feet lain sideways, or even the points of feet lying heel-down on the mattress, but the dull-yet-sharp jut of a volcano rising out of a flatland, no foothills or slopes to support it. And the sheets were smoothed down, almost tucked in under the...under his legs, accentuating the damage, and they were so far up the bed...

Jim vaguely noticed Pike lay a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh God," he breathed, feeling suddenly sick. More than sick - the nausea swelled and rose, and he turned sharply and bolted into the bathroom across the hall just in time for the tide to crest, and vomit spectacularly into the toilet.

_The sight of that...those...oh God, he was literally half gone..._

Pike had followed him, and handed over a damp facecloth when Jim had stopped emptying his stomach of everything he'd had in the last day and a half. He looked suddenly old, the lines on his face thrown into sharp relief by the droop of his mouth, and he nodded.

"First time you've seen it, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically. "I just about did the same. It's a damn shock."

Jim sat on the cool bathroom tiles, shivering. "He's...oh God, that's..."

Pike shrugged. "Nobody can look at an amputee for the first time and not recoil - no matter what they tell you. It's too shocking to us. It's too far away from what we're trained to think is the norm."

"I didn't want to see it," Jim whispered, closing his eyes and grinding the heel of his hand into the right eye socket. "I didn't want to...to accept that..."

"Don't accept it," Pike said sharply. "You should never accept it. Get used to it, cope with it, work around it, yes. But don't accept something like that, Kirk. If you do - if _he _does - then he's never getting out of that chair. Maybe even that bed. And trust me - I know what I'm talking about."

Jim nodded, hand still pressed into his eyes. "I..." he began, then tried again. "I didn't want to see him like that..."

"Nobody does," Pike said. "But we can't get around that. He needs you."

Jim laughed bitterly and shook his head. "I'm crap at that. He needed me then - it's obvious now - and I wasn't there. I just...I left him. That's what it comes down to. I left him."

Pike said nothing.

"I'm not up to this," Jim breathed.

"He still needs you," Pike said flatly. "You need to step up to the plate now. If you don't..." he trailed off, but they both knew the consequence.

Jim nodded, struggling to his feet and swallowing hard against the sting in his throat.

"Mouthwash is in the cabinet," Pike nodded at it, rising from where he'd been sitting on the side of the bath. "I'll go back and see if he noticed that display or not."

* * *

Jim walked back into the bedroom five minutes later, the iron clench in his guts now a familiar enemy, and found McCoy tapping away at a datapadd and opening his collection of hyposprays, grim-faced. Instead of pausing to talk to him, however, Jim found himself staring at Spock again, this time bypassing the...legs...entirely and going straight for the face.

But on the way to the face was the_ arm_.

Both arms had been lain over the sheets rather than under them, and Jim didn't know whether to be thankful for the black undershirt that Spock was wearing. It had long sleeves, with the sleeve of the missing arm folded up and pinned together just underneath where his arm now ended. It...

It softened the blow. That gentle end was not so blindingly horrifying as the absence of his legs, and the soft black material made the amputation seem less sharp, less abrupt. Although half the arm was missing, and Jim knew intellectually that to look at the bare flesh would be a shock in itself, the sight of it like this...

He took a deep breath, and ruthlessly suppressed the nausea, eyes flying up to Spock's face.

His eyes were open, but staring off at the window blankly. Even Vulcan faces held a bit of expression, and mostly in the eyes - their intelligence and curiosity showed even when their faces didn't move. But Spock's eyes were blank: dark, empty pools that sent a shiver up Jim's spine.

"Is he...?" he fished.

"Think he's zoned out again," McCoy drawled, sounding distinctly unhappy about the fact. "I'm not sure how much he picks up when he's zoned out, so..."

Jim stopped listening, peeling himself from the doorframe and approaching the bed. Even when he gingerly sat on the edge of the mattress, and the bed dipped under his weight, Spock didn't respond to him, and those eyes didn't flicker.

From this perspective, the picture only got worse. Spock had always been lean, but he couldn't have been described as thin. In Vulcan terms, he looked aged: Vulcan males, Jim knew, tended to be stockier in build in their youth, much closer to Human men, and lost that muscle as they got older. Old Vulcans - of either gender - were thin. Young ones...were not, and Spock was no exception.

But the man lying there was _thin_ - cheeks hollowed, face gaunt, the black only serving to accentuate the weight loss. Jim experimentally placed a heavy hand on his chest, and could feel the ribs flexing with every shallow breath.

Jim walked his hand up Spock's chest and neck to cup his jaw - clean-shaven, but he suspected somebody else was doing that for him - and frowned. He was no telepath - completely psi-null, in fact - but Spock had never shielded much around Jim in the entirety of their relationship, and even Jim had been able to feel the faint...buzz, like a very mild electric shock, humming under Spock's skin - particularly his face and hands.

Jim reached for the hand then, wrapping it up tightly in both of his and rubbing at the fingers hopefully. He knew the significance - of course he did - and hoped that such a blatant display would get a reaction. Spock's hands were _sensitive_, and even while meditating, he had responded if Jim rubbed his fingers like this.

McCoy made a faint noise; simultaneously, Spock's hand shifted slightly in Jim's - and a faint current of electrical thought warmed his palm.

"Spock?" he whispered. "Can you hear me?"

Those dark eyes closed, briefly, and the head turned towards Jim's voice before they opened again, hazy and confused as though he were waking from a long sleep. Jim smiled and squeezed his hand, then - quite suddenly - burst into tears. He scrubbed furiously at the upswell with one hand, unable to tear his eyes from Spock's, and squeezing that hand fiercely in his.

"I'm sorry," he choked. "Just...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't...I'm so sorry..."

Spock closed his eyes again, hand going limp in Jim's, and the electrical thought dying down to silence once more.

But judging by the elated look on McCoy's face, it was a start.

* * *

_"Well, I woke up in mid-afternoon, 'cos that's when it all hurts the most." - Counting Crows, Mrs. Potter's Lullaby._

_

* * *

_

**END PART TWO**


End file.
